Carrying a Cross that Makes No Sense

That late July afternoon, we walked into the hospice facility carrying a half-melted container of homemade ice cream. In our hurry to get the treat to its destination in peak condition, we had forgotten bowls and spoons. Our elderly friend lit up when she saw us dripping down the hallway. But she wasn’t the patient there. Her daughter was—a reality that still breaks my heart. 

It felt so small to do this—and futile in a way—as both women ate only a couple bites (from borrowed bowls) yet thanked us profusely. I had the same feeling as I often do sending fresh flowers to a funeral, visiting a church member with dementia who will not remember I was there,  or the time I helped my mother wash her brother’s bedsheets daily as he lay dying in her own bed. 

Each such a small act, but perhaps bigger than we realize—considering the narrative it fit into.

NO LOGICAL SENSE

It’s a little detail of the Easter story that doesn’t yet make sense to me. A random Jewish visitor in Jerusalem for Passover, likely a bystander, Simon of Cyrene was forced into the most heart-breaking service.

Jesus, denounced by the Chief Priests, tried and condemned before Pilate, was mercilessly scourged nearly to death. Roman soldiers tasked with his crucifixion feared that he may die before the ascent of Golgotha while bearing history’s heaviest cross. Roman law allowed soldiers to press Jews into service for Rome so they forced a passerby to assist the “King of the Jews.” As recounted in all three of the Synoptic Gospels: Simon of Cyrene was that man (Matthew 27:32, Mark 15:21, Luke 23:26).

He’s someone in the Scripture I can easily relate to. I didn’t pick up my cross willingly. Most days I still don’t willingly carry it. I didn’t see it as a share in Jesus’s story at first. Maybe none of us do.

I didn’t pick up my cross willingly. Most days I still don’t willingly carry it. I didn’t see it as a share in Jesus’s story at first.

Maybe none of us do.

Simon suddenly became a part of the scene, setting his own journey aside. A jagged, unplanned, illogical plot.

I’ve seen such fractured stories in real-time: A young adoptive mother dying from cancer…a long-anticipated child lost in an accident…a family business dissolved in bankruptcy…a prayed-for marriage slipping into divorce.

After we lost so many majestic trees in a tornado, we planted a few saplings. It seemed almost silly at first. But when I saw my husband digging a hole for one against the backdrop of stumps and splintered branches, I knew I’d been given a glimpse of what hope looks like: Planting a tree you know you’ll never swing from, build with, or picnic under.

TO HELP BUT NOT TO SAVE

On His way to Golgotha, Jesus was clearly struggling, and the Pharisees don’t want him to die along the way — not out of compassion, but because they wanted to see him breathe his last on a cross—theological proof that he was cursed by God (Deuteronomy 21:22-23). But after a night of physical and judicial abuse, including a flogging that would have left many men dead, they knew Jesus just might expire along the way. He might die too soon.

Part of the planned execution process involved shameful, public humiliation. Simon did not merely spectate; he also partook in the Lord’s advance toward crucifixion—receiving jeering insults and all.

Simon must have felt ill-equipped once he realized the story he’d stepped into. But he soon learned that God only needs what’s already in our hand to work – like Simon’s muscles, Moses’s staff, the boy’s loaves and fishes, the widow’s oil, the fishermen’s nets. (Or, in my case, a tried-and-true homemade ice cream recipe.)

But is it any good to go only part of the way? 

What good is it to help but not to save?

Often, like Simon, we don’t get to see the end of the story we’re living in. But our part still matters.

I remember reading as a little girl a quote that even AI can’t find for me now. It went something like this: 

What we can do is often just a drop in the bucket in the face of the world’s suffering. But we must all put in our drops. God does expect that.

– Author Unknown

I also remember the story of a young boy throwing starfish back into the ocean one at a time after hundreds had washed to the shore one early morning. A passerby said, “You know you can’t possibly make a difference in this.” Tossing another back into the water, the boy replied, “Well, I made a difference for THAT one.”

But what if that one is then immediately devoured by an ocean predator?

Like Simon, carrying Jesus’s cross up the hill of Calvary for Him, then, after witnessing the worst, he left. And Jesus died. 

An incomplete rescue. Even with our adult children or dearly-loved friends and coworkers. Helping the homeless or the hungry, the mistreated or the trafficked. And, literally every fix we humanly offer this side of eternity. From my journal:

My cardiologist constantly re-evaluates my meds, hoping to find the magic tweak. But she always settles on this: the meds aren’t meant to reduce death, just to reduce hospitalization, and make heart failure more tolerable and more manageable.

To help but not to save. 

NO ONE CHOOSES A CROSS

My journey with heart failure has had its sweet moments: a book, some speaking, some mentoring. Still, given the choice, I’d like to opt out.

Simon, too, was pressed into service (Matthew 27:32, Mark 15:21, Luke 23:26). Scripture does not say he volunteered. In a manner of spiritualizing what Simon did, I can say, too, I’d rather not “carry my cross.”

Simon was chosen so suddenly and unexpectedly (“seized”) for the heavy task—perhaps Luke’s way of teaching us that we don’t always choose the moment of our cross bearing. Simon was a real historical person, and he encountered Jesus at a real historical moment. We don’t always choose the moment of our suffering. They come upon us in unexpected ways, frightening ways, heavy ways, painful ways, seemingly random ways.

We don’t always choose the moment of our suffering.
They come upon us in unexpected ways, frightening ways, heavy ways, painful ways, seemingly random ways.

Forcing Simon to carry that instrument of torture and death, the Romans not only humiliated him but automatically prevented him from participating in the Passover (likely Simon’s own purpose for being there in the first place). Because from that moment on he would be considered “unclean” in the eyes of God and men.

The message of the cross puts Jesus precisely in the places we’d least expect God to be. 

And perhaps puts us in some unexpected places, too.

No one can be a Christian without the cross. 

– Johann Ernst Von Holst

AN INCONVENIENT MIRACLE ON THE WAY

More often than not, and certainly for Simon, a cross isn’t to solve but to carry. To further the story along. Even when, as in the case of Simon that Friday afternoon, we don’t get to know Sunday’s storyline just yet.

But, whether we realize it or not, we are all only a small (sometimes baffling) piece of His much bigger narrative.

I wonder, Did Simon know the charges against Jesus? Had he seen the miracles? Was he a believer?  Many have tried to fill in the blanks about this significant yet obscure man. Many believe the mention of his son’s names (Alexander and Rufus) in Mark’s narrative points to their significance in the early church; some believe Simon and his sons became missionaries. Others have surmised that this moment, and the later resurrection of Jesus, saved Simon and his family. (Simon was present at the crucifixion, too.) The mention of “men of . . . Cyrene” preaching in the book of Acts has also been connected to this cross-carrying man. All of this, though researched, remains speculation.

It’s tempting to believe that Simon’s compelling moment paved the way for something great, something worthy, or someone saved. We want it to make sense. 

But the hard truth is, sometimes cross-carrying makes no sense.

And it’s almost always inconvenient.

Reading the gospels, I’m struck by how many holy moments happened on the way to somewhere else. Jesus seemed to be very comfortable inconveniently performing miracles on the way to somewhere else:

1. Jairus’s Daughter and The Woman with the Issue of Blood (Mark 5:21–43) –  While Jesus was on the way to Jairus’s house, a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years touched His garment and was healed. Then He continued on and raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead.
2. Healing of Blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46–52) – Jesus left Jericho on His way toward Jerusalem (ultimately toward the cross). Blind Bartimaeus cried out, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and restored his sight.
3. The Ten Lepers (Luke 17:11–19) – “On the way to Jerusalem,” Ten lepers called out to Jesus. He healed them before continuing His journey.
4. Raising the Widow’s Son at Nain (Luke 7:11–17) as He approached the city gate.
5. The Healing at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1–15) on His way to a Jewish festival.
6. Even The Feeding of the 5,000 in Matthew 14:13–21 happened while Jesus was on his way to much needed rest.

Maybe all of God’s best moves take advantage of such in-between time. Maybe it’s the only place we hold ourselves still enough to allow Him to work in our hearts. I’ve been on the heart failure road for a decade now. Thinking (hoping) I was on my way to healing, to wholeness. Funny thing is, while on this confusing road to healing (or not), I’ve found the miracle I didn’t know I needed: a deeper, more personal faith. (Perhaps the same was true for Simon.)

Cross-carrying, like homemade ice cream in hospice, is still mostly irrational to me. But I do know this: No matter how uncomfortable, unclear, and inconvenient it seems, we never carry a cross without a purpose.

Christianity…ultimately offers no theoretical solution at all. It merely points to the cross and says that, practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene—not even this—but that God can turn it to good.  

– Frederick Buechner

Listen to this post read by the author HERE.